The target becomes a Living Bomb, taking X Fire damage over 12 sec. When this effect ends, or the target dies, it explodes to deal an additional X Fire damage to up to 3 enemies within 10 yards. Limit 3 targets.

The target becomes a Living Bomb, taking X Fire damage over 12 sec. When this effect ends, or the target dies, it explodes to deal an additional X Fire damage to up to 3 enemies within 10 yards. Limit 3 targets.

This spell has a 1.0 sec global cooldown.

"Pop quiz! You've got a bomb attached to your soul. What do you do?"—Riley Sizzleswitch[1]

Living Bomb is a mage talent available at level 75. It debuffs the target with a DoT, dealing damage over 12 seconds, modified by spell power. After the debuff expires, or when it is dispelled, the target explodes, dealing damage to three enemies within 10 yards.

Contents

Modified by

Uses

In raid situations, Living Bomb is a considerable DPS increase, and keeping it up constantly can theoretically boost DPS by up to 10%.

Its instant casting, damage on the move and delayed boom effects are considerably useful effects that make the mage vastly more mobile and versatile.

Its AoE benefits on raid trash clearance are considerable if it detonates; Living Bomb's final explosion is NOT subject to AoE damage caps, and can inflict horrendous damage on large groups of packed mobs (examples being phase 2 Onyxian whelps or the Frostwyrm hatchlings directly before Sindragosa in Icecrown Citadel).

In PvP, Living Bomb adds to the mage's mobile DPS a lot and prevents dispels on enemy targets in fear of the AoE damage trigger.

Notes

During the beta of Wrath of the Lich King, the original effect of the spell was to make the caster themselves the Living Bomb, doing AOE damage to enemies within 10 yards, with a final explosion doing more damage. The spell was criticized as the damage was very low. The spell was then changed to be a castable debuff, but again was criticized for it's low damage. A mana-burn was added to the final explosion, burning off an amount of mana equal to the damage to the target, but the spell was still criticized. Eventually the damage was increased, the mana-burn was removed, and a knock-up effect was added to the final explosion, which knocked the target up into the air. This effect was removed before the spell was released.

Patch changes

Patch 4.3.0 (29-Nov-2011): Living Bomb damage over time has been increased by approximately 10%, and explosion damage has been increased by approximately 120%.

Patch 4.0.6 (8-Feb-2011): Living Bomb mana cost has been reduced by 22%.

/Patch 4.0.1 (12-Oct-2010): This spell can be cast on a maximum of 3 targets at a time.

Hotfix (2009-08-06): "Hot Streak triggers exactly as stated in its tooltip: “2 non-periodic spell criticals in a row using Fireball, Fire Blast, Scorch, Living Bomb, or Frostfire Bolt”. Only non-periodic damage interacts with it, and only those spells listed. Periodics do not affect the streak in any way. Direct damage from the listed spells always count, for or against the streak."

Patch 3.2.0 (04-Aug-2009): Can now be cast on multiple targets at the same time. Periodic critical strikes from this ability can now trigger Ignite and Hot Streak.

Patch 3.0.8 (2009-01-20): Now triggers Ignite when it causes a critical strike. In addition, the final explosion will now still occur even if the mage is affected by a crowd control effect.

Patch 3.0.3 (04-Nov-2008): Mana cost reduced to be the same as Arcane Explosion.. It no longer causes the caster to stand up when the final explosion occurs and it is now possible for each mage to have Living Bomb active on a target.; Living Bomb’s “explosion effect” will now be properly classified.